


you’ve been talking in your sleep (every day is a lullaby when you’re already hurt)

by teacupsandsheepskulls



Series: baby we don't talk (about the things you do when you mean to say i love you) [4]
Category: The Fugitive (Movies)
Genre: Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, PLEASE HEED THE TAGS, Period-Typical Homophobia, Suicidal Thoughts, Trauma, sad but then heartwarming at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:21:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25042330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teacupsandsheepskulls/pseuds/teacupsandsheepskulls
Summary: The dark reminds Sam of things he doesn’t want to remember, and the dark behind his eyes is even worse. And so he switches on all the lights and reminds his hands of safe tasks until the daylight comes again and it’s easier to remember the people who need him. But Sam has been alone for a long time and doesn’t want John to see what he struggles to remember in the dark. John reminds him that sharing the dark can also mean giving someone permission to leave a light on for you.
Relationships: Samuel Gerard/John Royce (U.S. Marshals)
Series: baby we don't talk (about the things you do when you mean to say i love you) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1763008
Kudos: 5





	you’ve been talking in your sleep (every day is a lullaby when you’re already hurt)

**Author's Note:**

> Subtitled: An exploration of complex trauma, a certain type of self-loathing, deep-seated emotional repression, a lifetime of breathing in toxic fumes under the closet door alone, and John Royce spelling out in neon lights that “not sick enough” is complete bullshit. Also, John really wants Sam to be okay. Sam’s not entirely okay by the end, but he has solace, and sometimes that’s enough.
> 
> Title derived from “Just Give Me a Reason” by Pink and FUN, and “Happiness is a butterfly” by Lana Del Rey.

_I found the one damn person to help me fall asleep in the night._

_But sleeping gets tiring, and dark reminds me of dying,_

_And as long as this feeble heart is still beating,_

_You will find me rushing through every room, switching on all the lights._

-from ”Plain Sailing Weather” by Frank Turner

Sam does not dream often of Texas, perhaps because he no longer thinks of it as his own.

Texas was his parents’ home. The place they got married, the place they bought a house, the place they had their only son. They were of Texas and Texas was of them, at one with the heat and the pace of life and the rhythms of the place they made for themselves.

Texas was Sam’s home once, that small Houston suburb he grew up in and Houston he moved to. But Texas was also where his mother grew sick and died in a hospital bed, where he and his father grew apart, first through loss, then through the fact of being a single father on police shifts, then through Sam’s knowledge of the power his father’s badge held over him within four nominally safe walls. His father could arrest him, could institutionalize him, could stand by and do nothing while cops he knew arrested his son, or worse. And the stories Philip Gerard did tell about his shifts, the few ones Sam can still recite word for word at forty-nine, the ones in which Sam’s father arrested men and women for sodomy, took a different tenor as Sam grew older. It became a relief, as Sam became a teenager, that his father was rarely ever home, so that he did not have to share what happened in his shifts and Sam did not have to ask.

Instead, on those few nights when Philip was home and many of the nights he wasn’t, Sam lay awake in his room staring at the ceiling. His mother painted a starry sky there when he was very young which Sam refused to let his father paint over as he grew older. And later, when he was a teenager and the painted sky was no longer enough, he removed the screen from his bedroom window and used the tree outside to climb to the roof, where he could lay on the shingles and stare at the real stars. Regardless of what stars hung above him, though, Sam would lay awake thinking of what life would be like when the four walls around him were his own, when he could make his four walls safe for himself. And most of all, he lay awake thinking of how he would get himself there, and when he could dream, he dreamed of a wide-open sky he could breathe deep into his lungs.

Sam wondered, when he first moved to Chicago, what his younger self would have thought of the Chicago sky. It’s not open at all--it’s even more crowded than Texas and certainly more gray. His younger self would not have believed such a thing could feel like freedom, but at twenty-nine, the gray Chicago sky looked like a blank slate and the city air tasted clean. Chicago was his, though he was old enough to know this did not make it safe.

Sam dreamed only once of Texas itself, about two weeks after he moved to Chicago. He dreamed he was back in his father’s living room, with his father he had not seen in eleven years on the couch facing him, asking him why Sam left his family behind. His father’s gun rested at his hip and Sam could not reply, waking in his own apartment in Chicago in the silent dark. Sam stumbled to his own kitchen and bungled his way through a bread recipe he had not mastered so his hands could think of something other than his Marshals gun catching the kitchen light.

When dawn came, Sam went running shaken but able to breathe. He still pitched the bread in the dumpster on his way out the door for work, and after avoiding his recipe box for a week, he snatched that recipe out and tucked it into the shoebox with his father’s folded flag, the photo of his father in uniform, his parents on their wedding day, and his mother’s old necklace. He slid the shoebox back into its home soothed by the knowledge that it was put away, that he did not need to tend to it anymore.

Sam does not dream often of Marie and lets himself think of her even less.

John asks about her twice and then not at all, first by accident over Christmas when Sam answers a question about anyone missing him in Texas by saying he was almost married once, and then months later over dinner when the conversation happened to turn to stories of people they once knew and John asked Sam about the woman he almost married. He tells John her name was Marie and that she was a grade school English teacher who he met while they were both still in high school. She was one of his few classmates who could tolerate his abrasiveness and his quietness in equal turn. She did not understand them, but that did not seem to bother her--these were but two of many things she did not understand about him, including his desire to be a cop. Marie seemed entirely comfortable with the parts of him she did understand, accepting that his quietness was part and parcel of his good memory for things she mentioned to him, that his abrasiveness was part and parcel of his impatience with stupidity and narrow-minded thinking of any kind. Her friends often told her that Sam was a bastard, but this did not seem to bother her either. She knew he was a bastard, but he was also kind to her, and if the price of a kind young man instead of the childishly cruel boys her friends dated was not being able to completely understand his eccentricities, Marie seemed perfectly happy to pay it.

Sam does not tell John that he fell into dating Marie because it was easy, or that it was easy because he did genuinely care for her and she for him. And if he never did feel the same heat for her that she seemed to feel for him, he learned to fake it quickly, knowing that it would hurt her and that his hesitance could easily translate to harm. And if there were times (more than Sam let himself remember) that he wanted to claw his own skin off where she touched him, that he lay awake nauseous with the wrongness of it, he reminded himself that he did genuinely care for Marie, that he did love her, or at least he wanted to.

Nor does Sam tell John that he only let himself act on the urge to flee a handful of times as a teenager. He did take time to himself now and then, so Marie did not question it when sometimes he needed a complete retreat from others rather than simply sitting among friends without engaging. And if those few times Sam got in his car and fled a few towns over where he knew no one would know him, and if those times he let himself sometimes seek out boys he knew would taste sweeter than Marie ever did or more often seek out men he knew would hurt him until his mind and his body matched, it was no one’s business but his own. And then he became a cop fresh out of high school and could no longer afford even a those few hours of emptiness. 

Sam does not dream often of the day Marie woke up in the middle of the night to find Sam sitting in the dark in their living room, still in uniform, his gun and his badge on the coffee table in front of him alongside a half-empty bottle of whiskey. He blinked when Marie turned on the lamp, the only indication he knew she was there until she took the bottle out of his hand and demanded to know what was wrong. Sam told her, with the whiskey taking the place of the mask he couldn’t form on his own, that he had to arrest two men outside a nightclub. The police had been called because of an altercation in the club that spilled into an alley, but that wasn’t why the men were arrested. They were arrested on sodomy charges, when the police found out that the fight started because two other men happened to discover them and make their thoughts on the matter clear, and with bystanders confirming the story, all involved parties were arrested, though only two remained in county lockup. And when Marie hugged him, saying she was sorry he had to see something so awful, Sam made himself tuck his nose into her hair and breathe her in, reminding himself that Marie is a good woman, that Marie is safe, that he owes it to her to be the kind of fiancé and husband she deserves and this familiar pain he cannot seem to let go is not part of it. It certainly isn’t Marie’s burden to carry.

His dream does not remind him of what happened after, of how he threw himself into work and his life with Marie. This was what he was supposed to be, and so he would be it. Marie seemed delighted by his renewed attentiveness, and that only furthered his resolve.

But it isn’t Marie next to him. It’s John, blinking awake in confusion. Sam wraps his arms around John and settles back into bed, though he does not sleep, and when their alarm finally goes off for running, he gets up with relief. He has enough energy to put together a nicer breakfast than usual before they both depart for work, one of John’s favorites, which brightens his whole countenance before the prospect of a horrifically long day in a case that will not end. Sam snarks back at John with a small smile, relieved at the sensation of happiness. They are alright, they are more than alright, and Sam can be happy here.

And if a chill creeps into his lungs out of nowhere and stops him in his tracks in the middle of the morning, Sam tunes back into Newman asking if he’s listening and growls back as he smothers the feeling down. They are alright. John is alright. Sam’s kids are alright. Sam is alright. He chants these things to himself as he bickers with Biggs and Henry over lunch, reminding himself that everything is fine, and there is no reason why he shouldn’t be happy.

Sam does not dream often of the day he knew he could not marry Marie. It was an ordinary day, a completely normal Saturday when Sam happened to be home and made coffee for the both of them before settling at the table to clean his gun. Marie set to making breakfast while informing him of various headlines read while cracking eggs, asking him to mow the lawn, to which he agreed. It was soothing in its ordinariness, its rhythm and tempo. It is only memorable for the moment when the thought flickered through his mind that no one would know the difference if, when reassembling and reloading his gun, he neglected to put the safety on. If his hands happened to slip, while the gun happened to be pointing at him. No one would know the difference if it wasn’t neglect, if it wasn’t a slip of the hand.

His dream always ends there, and not the moment that came after, when Sam set the magazine aside and reassembled the gun in quick movements before striding quickly to lock it up, looping back a second time to lock up the magazine too. His dream reminds him of the pause when the thought unfolded into consequences in front of him, when he didn’t hear the question Marie asked him because he was dizzy with the possibility in his hands, and not the moment when he came back into the kitchen and kissed Marie and apologized for not hearing her, asking her to repeat her question. His dream reminds him of the future that could have happened and not the future that actually did, which was Sam spending all day doing chores outside until the hot sun burned away all rational thought and he could chuckle with only a little weight in his chest when Marie scolded him for getting sunburned. He did not tell her what went through his head that morning, and he did not tell her that his burning skin finally felt safe again. 

So when Sam wakes up from that dream, even after all this time, it takes him a long time to breathe in, to clench his fists and remind himself that he’s holding his sheets and not his gun, that this isn’t something he dreamed. This is his future, the choice to put the gun away and stand in the sun over and over again and burn the thought out of his mind one day longer.

Except it’s always dark when he wakes up from that dream, and it’s dark this time, even with John asleep next to him. Worse, he’s in John’s apartment this time, so he’s even more disoriented, and when he gets out of bed to do something with his hands in the kitchen, there’s nothing there for him to work with. So he paces in silence around John’s apartment.

It takes a week for Sam to admit that he’s feeling a bad tide under a red sky, one of the innumerable bad tides and red skies that have come and gone from him over the years. But before, he was alone. He didn’t have Chicago, or Walsh, or his kids, or even the rare solace of a lover. He could attach most of those tides to his loneliness or a bad case under his skin or even just a bad week, and those tides he couldn’t attach to a cause he crushed down until they too vanished into breathless relief.

He’s not supposed to have a tide like this now, with John. He loves John more than he thought his cold heart was capable of and John loves him with a depth and breadth Sam didn’t think himself capable of accepting. He has John, he has his kids, he has Walsh, he has Chicago. He’s not supposed to feel like this. He’s supposed to be happy.

So Sam throws himself into what he’s supposed to feel, throws himself into John, his kids, his job. He’s waded through bad tides before and he can do it again. It ought to be easier this time, because he’s supposed to be happy and has every reason to be.

And if, after three days, he feels suddenly exhausted at the realization that he has nowhere to escape between his kids at work and John at home, he shoves away the feeling in a wash of fury. He has his kids at work and John at home and he shouldn’t need to escape either of them, and he pushes away the exhaustion that keeps him awake many nights with the vicious reminder that feeling it is a betrayal.

Sam does not dream often of the day he told Marie he could not marry her. He doesn’t remember what precipitated the conversation and doesn’t let himself remember the full extent of its contents. But he does remember Marie’s face, pleading with him to tell her what was wrong, to explain what changed, to help her understand. And he does remember the feeling in the pit of his stomach, in his throat, in his chest, spreading through him to his teeth and fingernails, when he stared blankly back at her, when he could not give her an answer, because the only answer was that marrying her would kill him slowly and then all at once. He knew he could only survive the wake of this if he kept his truths close, where they couldn’t be turned against him, where they couldn’t hurt her too.

Sam wakes from that dream and spends all day quiet and distracted and snappish. When he goes even more still and quiet with the dark and John asks him what’s wrong after dinner, Sam rinses off the dish he was washing, dries his hands, and walks across the kitchen to kiss John breathless. A reminder that this is his future, that this is the truth he chose for himself, here, now, with John.

And when the thought dances behind his tongue that he still isn’t talking, that he still hasn’t answered John’s question as he never answered Marie’s, Sam slips his hands under John’s shirt to feel the warmth of him against his fingers so that he can remember the rightness of it, the feeling that this is where he belongs. They forget the dishes after that, but Sam can feel in the way John’s hands trace along his back afterward that John hasn’t forgotten the question.

It echoes in Sam’s mind, keeping him awake for strings of days at a time. He tries to stay in bed for fear of waking John until he worries his mind is too loud anyway, and then he gets up and paces around the rest of his apartment in silence.

His exhausted mind keeps flashing to Marie, asking him what was wrong and meeting a wall of silence and avoidance. It was characteristic of their relationship, such that Marie eventually learned that the only way to get Sam to tell her what was wrong was to let him volunteer it of his own volition.

But John is not Marie, and Sam wants to answer.

Because Sam knows John hasn’t forgotten the question either, and now that he’s asked it, he knows John can see it in everything Sam does. And it isn’t fair to John, because John had Daniel Ward who was murdered and Thomas Abbott who had a reason and John still hears the echoes of the gunshots that took them from him.

Unlike Daniel Ward, this is Sam’s fault, and unlike Thomas Abbott, he doesn’t have a reason. As still more sleepless nights bleed into long days, Sam still doesn’t have a reason. And as he lays awake again one endless Thursday, Sam thinks it would be cruel to tell John this when he doesn’t have a reason. John loves him, and it is unfair of Sam to answer his love with a hurt that has no reason.

But the daylight is so far away.

Sam doesn’t know what possesses him to get out of bed and unlock his gun, or why his hands load it and take the safety off, but the moment it clicks, his mind stills and crystallizes around that one point, the feeling of the cold weight in his hands, the sound of the safety ringing in his ears, the faint smell of metal and oil. How easy it would be to hold his gun as he always has, to use it for the purpose it was made for.

He tries to put the safety back but switches it off again immediately. But standing there fighting with himself while his gun is in his hands feels dangerous and he doesn’t want to see John’s gun again either when he opens the safe, so goes into his kitchen, setting the gun gingerly on the windowsill facing away from him.

It’s not safe there at all, he can’t breathe with it there, but at least he can see it. He can stay away from it. It’s nothing more than a tool, something he’s used to save lives.

Sam makes sure the bedroom door is closed and turns on every light in the kitchen. It’s not bright enough to shake his mind loose from focusing on the gun, and the glint of light against his gun is blinding. So he schools his body into taking out his baking supplies, turning away from his gun on the windowsill as much as he can.

“Sam?”

He’s too tense to jump at the sound of John’s voice, but the wave of guilt at the realization that his unsteady hands were loud enough to wake John up keeps him from looking at John’s face. Sam doesn’t answer, just crosses from the table to the counter to continue fighting with batter, all too aware of his gun on the windowsill above the sink, within reach of his right hand.

He hears John go still, and John’s voice is no longer bleary when he asks, “Why is your gun out?”

Sam’s hands still in the bowl, and he stares at it trying to _move_ , but he might as well be mixing concrete.

“Sam?”

John’s voice without the movement of his hands is even worse. Sam sets the bowl down, his jaw lighting up in pain as he grinds his teeth together, praying for John to go away so he doesn’t have to see this.

This only seems to worry John more. “Sam, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t know.” The croak of his own voice is worse, because it’s the wrong kind of movement and the wrong words and it’s so dark outside he can’t see what the right ones are.

“Sam?”

“I don’t know,” he repeats, desperately, because these still aren’t the right words.

He hears John pad across the kitchen, feels John against his side, but turns his head down and away. “What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I don’t know,” Sam repeats, his voice lower and harsh as blasting sand.

“Don’t know what?”

“You asked me what was wrong,” Sam grits out through his teeth. “I don’t know.”

“Okay,” John says softly, one hand settling on Sam’s arm only to startle out of place when Sam shoves the bowl across the counter with a loud clatter.

“ _No_.” His eyes settle on his gun on the kitchen windowsill, loaded with the safety off and not at all locked up where it belongs. “I don’t know what’s wrong.”

“Okay,” John repeats. Sam swears he can hear John’s gaze flicker to the gun and back again. “Why don’t you talk me through it then?”

“I don’t know how.”

“Okay,” John says, softer even than before.

Soft enough to prick something in Sam’s head, because his hands grip hard on the edges of the counter and he feels his face twist and warp even as his eyes stay on his gun. “ _Stop saying that_.”

“Sam.”

“It’s _not_.”

“It’s not what?”

“It’s not _okay._ ” Sam’s hands shake against the counter.

“Sam.” There’s a hand on his shoulder, trying to pull him from the counter, from the thing keeping his hands from gripping some other solid thing.

“ _It’s not okay_ ,” Sam snarls, leaving something jagged in his chest.

“I hear you,” John’s voice is low and urgent and not enough. “Just come here.”

But Sam can’t let go of the counter even though his hands and arms ache. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands once they’re empty, and he can’t look at John because he doesn’t know how to be what he’s supposed to be.

An arm reaches across his chest, holding him back, trying to pull him away. “Sam, come here.”

He can feel John, but he can’t see him. He can’t see anything except his gun. 

“ _Sam_ ,” John’s voice is higher, sharper, hurting worse for the fear in it, “ _come here_.”

The arm across his chest tightens and Sam pulls against it, because it’s too dark now to let go. John tries to pull back and Sam fights him, but the action temporarily shakes his gaze from his gun, and the moment of blind fear is enough to unbalance him. John reaches both arms around him and pulls him away from the counter, leaving Sam’s hands free and his eyes unable to see. So he grabs for the closest solid thing, which is John, and wraps his arms around John, his hands pulsing with the effort of holding onto John’s shirt, his face hidden against John’s neck where he can feel John’s jackrabbiting pulse.

John’s arms come around him immediately, pulling him in and holding his head, murmuring into Sam’s ear so fast the words run together. “I’ve got you, just stay here, it’s alright.” He starts to pull Sam with him through the kitchen, stumbling when Sam just clings tighter. “I’ve got you, it’s alright, just come to bed.”

But they don’t make it to the bed. They make it to the couch, which Sam stumbles into sideways and takes John with him. He wraps himself around John as soon as John lands on the couch and John’s arms reach up and around him again, holding Sam where he doesn’t have to see and murmuring a litany of soothing tones in his ear. Eventually Sam relaxes his grip because his arms and back are burning too badly to keep clinging so tightly and he lays against John as a dead weight, his mind numb.

Sam wakes up to a line of iron knots in his back and the sun streaming through the living room windows. He sees the clock on the bookshelf and jolts, because it’s nine-twenty-three a.m. and he’s late for work, but John’s arms tighten around him before he can get up.

“Where are you going?” John murmurs, blinking awake. He looks so impossibly tired, and it’s Sam’s fault.

“It’s after nine,” Sam says back, turning away and trying to get free. “Work.”

“No you’re not,” John replies, yawning with his whole face. “I left Cosmo a message saying you came down with something last night and told Perry I’m taking a sick day.”

“I’m not sick,” Sam snaps, shaking himself loose and pushing away from where he was curled against John’s torso, hating how the cold bites against him.

“I’m not saying you’re sick, I’m saying you need a day.” John sits up and pushes himself upright.

Sam rubs his eyes and shakes away the hand that settles on his arm. “I don’t need a day. Or a long weekend, since it’s Friday.”

John sighs and lets his hand drop on the couch between them. “If you’re really hellbent on leaving, I won’t lock you in. Just let me make breakfast first.” He stands and starts to walk away, leaving the couch empty and cold.

Sam reaches and catches his wrist, but when John looks at him, Sam’s words flee from him again and all he can do is hold on tighter.

John lets out a breath that echoes in Sam’s ears, but he turns his arm in Sam’s grip to take Sam’s hand. “Come have breakfast,” John says quietly, and while his face sends a rush of guilt down Sam’s throat, his relief when Sam stands and follows him makes it easier to swallow.

He doesn’t know when it happened, but his gun is gone and the kitchen is clean, and that lets Sam breathe a little easier. Sam tries to help, but all he can seem to do is stare into the open cabinet until John steers him by the shoulders into a chair at the kitchen table. He watches in silence as John moves through the kitchen because he can’t form a coherent thought to do anything else.

Because it’s John and John can cook only a few things well, they end up with fried eggs and toast. Sam prods the eggs and shreds the toast, and they eat in the same silence as before.

After Sam stares at the pieces of his toast for five minutes uninterrupted, he hears John sigh and a hand reaches out for his plate. But Sam catches it and holds on, and after a moment John’s fingers thread through his and John's thumb runs along Sam’s hand.

Sam tries to look up at John but finds that he can’t. He’s chased after armed mass murderers without a second thought, has stared down more dangerous situations than most people can fathom in their lifetime. But he can’t lift his head, and he can’t even find it in him to be furious with himself for the absurdity of it.

“Sam?”

Sam tries to talk. Even manages to open his mouth. But no sound comes out, and his teeth click together again. He tries again, tries to shape his lips into the right words, but his tongue doesn’t know the right alphabet.

“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” John says, his voice gentle.

But somehow that hurts worse, and Sam finally forces out, “I do,” just as he feels John starting to give up on an answer.

“Okay,” John says.

John waits, but Sam’s mind is hollow again, and all he can say is, “I don’t know how.”

“Okay.”

“It’s _not_ ,” Sam snarls. Then he feels his face go slack again under the sour bile of guilt on his tongue and he clings to John’s hand because it’s the only thing he can seem to do.

“You said that last night too,” John says. His other hand reaches up and clasps around Sam’s hand. “What do you mean it’s not okay?”

“It’s not,” Sam chokes on the word, tries again. “I’m not,” but he can’t finish that sentence either.

“Alright,” John says gently. “It’s not okay. You’re not okay. And that’s upsetting you.”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell me why?”

“It’s supposed to be.”

“What’s supposed to be?”

“I’m supposed to be. Because we are.” 

“Sam, I’m trying, but I really need a few more words.”

Sam takes a long breath and lets it go, suddenly feeling like he’s cornered in one of the cupboards instead of sitting in the middle of the room. “I love you.”

The hands around Sam’s tighten. “I love you too.”

“That’s the _problem_.” John’s grip falters slightly and Sam holds on for dear life, willing John to understand. “I love you. You love me.”

“Why is that a problem?”

“Because we’re _happy._ You’re happy.” Sam looks up at John in desperation, finding only a cloud of confusion and worry. “I’m supposed to be happy.”

“Oh _Sam_.” Sam looks down from John, afraid of what he’ll see, but one hand catches his jaw before he can, holding him steady. “You’re not supposed to be anything for me.”

“Yes I am.”

“According to who? Because it’s certainly not according to me.”

“This is where I want to be. This is where I’m supposed to be. I’m supposed to be happy. I want to be happy. Because I love you. And I’m not. And I don’t know why.”

“That’s what’s been bothering you?” The hand on his jaw tightens and pulls Sam up to look at John’s face, and the expression there makes Sam’s chest ache. It’s all blossoming hurt, and John isn’t supposed to hurt. Not because of Sam. Not because of this.

“It isn’t fair to you,” Sam murmurs.

“Why is that not fair to me?”

“Because it isn’t fair of me to make you hurt too.”

“And it isn’t fair to you to feel like you have to hide this from me.” John’s eyes are bright as glass as they flicker over Sam’s face like he can see all the sharp edges Sam has tried to sand down. “I would be a monster if I left you to fight through this on your own.”

“You’re not.”

“I don’t know why you seem to think you are.”

“Because I’m the one who can’t let go of it. You shouldn’t have to carry it with me.”

John blinks and takes a long breath, shifting his hand on Sam’s face. “If you woke up in the middle of the night and I wasn’t there,” he says quietly, “and you found me with my gun sitting out, and you could see I was…” John falters, takes a breath, “if you could see I was in pain, that I was struggling, would you want me to keep it from you?”

“No.” The word floods out of him as the thought hits his lungs with the force of an oncoming freight train. Because Sam knows what he was last night and knows what John saw and the thought of John like that… _“No._ ”

“Then why do you think I would want you to hide this from me?”

“Because it’s different.”

“Why is it different?”

“Because it’s my fault.”

“Why would you being in pain be your fault?”

“Because there’s no _reason_ ,” Sam snarls. “Before, with Marie, I spent all the time feeling sick, I wanted to tear my guts out, I wanted,” his voice catches in his throat as his vision tightens and spins, dizzy with the _want_ , “I spent years trying to be what I was supposed to be, to love her the way she loved me, being the thing I grew up afraid of, trying to be safe. Hiding. But I’m safer now than I’ve ever been and I don’t need to try. There’s no reason anymore.”

“This isn’t your fault, and you don’t need a reason.” John’s voice is so very small, and Sam turns away when a knot rises in his throat. Sam clenches his teeth even as the fingers at his jaw try to loosen it. “Sam?”

“Daniel Ward was killed,” he says quietly, hating the sound of his voice even as he keeps forming words, even as John goes still next to him, “and Thomas Abbott had a reason. This, this is just me. It’s not fair for me to hurt you the way you were hurting after Thomas when it’s just me.”

There’s a moment of silence, then John pulls Sam back up to look at him, and when he speaks again, his voice is fierce. “I was hurting after Thomas died because my friend was hurting enough to kill himself and I didn’t do enough to help him. So don’t you dare think about what’s fair to me, or what you think you’re supposed to feel. I love you and I would never want you to feel so unsafe with me that you think you have to hide something like that from me.”

“I don’t feel unsafe with you,” Sam says, because he needs John to know it, then reaches with his free hand and pulls John toward him to kiss him, because he’s always been better without words.

It’s soothing to feel John ease into him, then John rests his forehead on Sam’s and murmurs, “Then tell me what you need.”

“I want to,” Sam’s breath is a growl when he lets it out, frustrated as his mind once more contracts and locks him out. “I don’t know how.”

“Alright,” John sits back again, his eyes still gentle. “Let me make a few guesses?” At Sam’s nod, he says, “Nights are harder for you, right?”

“Not all of them.”

“But some of them? The ones where you can’t sleep?”

Sam nods. “It’s easier during the day when I have things to do.”

“So you bake at night for something to do, right?”

“Something to do with my hands.”

“So wake me up next time, and I’ll keep my eyes out for days that might turn into bad nights in case waking me up is hard for you,” John says, lifting one of Sam’s hands to kiss it. “We’ll figure it out from there.”

It’s not a big offer and it’s the world even so, and Sam doesn’t know what to do with the idea, how readily John offers it. So he says, “Something to do with my hands?” in a low voice that surprises himself as much as it clearly surprises John. 

“I never in my life thought I would be both delighted and confused to _not_ be the one making an innuendo.” At Sam’s eye roll, John smirks. As if they don’t both know it’s Sam’s way of inviting John in as best he can when his words run scarce. “I know you and that was not accidental.”

Sam knows John and knows John is giving him space to absorb in his own time. “Partly,” Sam replies, his lips quirking up so that John smirks more. Then his face falters again. “I don’t know if it will get better.”

“I signed on for you, Sam, warts and all. This is part of it. And me getting a bit less sleep is the least of what I’d do for you.” His eyes are still bright, but his smile is a kind one that feels like standing in the sunshine.

Sam stands and pulls John up with him. “Let’s get out of here?”

“Yes please.” John moves into his space and Sam moves into his to kiss him again, not free but lighter.

They end up walking around the neighborhood for an hour, alternating between John talking Sam’s ear off about pleasant nothings and amicable silence. The sun reminds Sam he’s lasted another day.

They get back at eleven and have barely shed their shoes when the phone rings. John just glares at it, and on the second ring, Sam strides across the kitchen to bark into it. “Gerard.”

“You alright Sammy?”

Cosmo. And if Sam had to bet, the rest of his kids are lingering over Cosmo’s shoulder. “Peachy.”

Sure enough, he hears Newman chime in from the background. “See, I told you he’s not dying.”

“No one said he’s dying.” This from Henry.

Sam rubs a knuckle into his temple at the same time he hears a sigh in the background--Poole, probably. “How would I have picked up the phone if I was dying?”

“Yup, Sam’s fine,” Biggs says, sounding entirely too cheerful not to be relieved.

“Get lost, the lot of ya,” Cosmo calls, even though they definitely don’t get lost. Still, his voice is softer when he asks, “Really, though, you okay, Sammy?”

“I’m fine, Cosmo.” He feels a hand at his back--John. He rests a hand on John’s hip. “Thanks.”

“Anytime,” Cosmo replies. “John’s there?”

It still throws Sam off to have Cosmo casually ask that. “Yeah.”

“Good. Otherwise I’d have to beat his ass.”

“Watch it.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re very scary, grrr.” He can hear Cosmo rolling his eyes and Newman laughing in the background, but only just, because John is laughing too. “Put him on a minute?”

“Behave yourselves,” Sam growls.

“Not a chance,” Cosmo calls as the phone passes between them.

“Yes, dear?” John says, and even Sam can hear the guffaw in the background. He rolls his eyes and leaves a kiss at the base of John’s neck as he steps around him to the living room, hearing John talking quietly to Cosmo.

They while away the rest of the afternoon on stupid movies, John giving an admirable effort to make Sam laugh and sometimes even succeeding. He pulls John against him, only growling halfheartedly when a popcorn kernel sails through the air at the screen after something especially stupid happens. He’s closer to alright, for now, but he’s still not okay. He can still hear the blank, silent space in the back of his mind, doesn’t know how long he has until it swallows all other sounds again. Dark is coming, as it always does. He doesn’t know what tonight will feel like.

But John is here, and John will be there in the dark too.

For now, that’s enough.


End file.
